


Duty [a question of hearts]

by alyyks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bathtubs, Established Relationship, M/M, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 19:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: Umbara had many consequences.





	Duty [a question of hearts]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenityabrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityabrin/gifts).



Rex stands at attention, and waits, and does not wish for sudden blaster fire to break the absolute boredom found in between too much to worry about and nothing to possibly be done about those worries in the instant he lives in.  
  
It’s been a long rotation. A long standard month. A long _war_. Waiting in a corridor of the Senate building to explain his actions and the actions of his men to people who, in his carefully kept-to-himself opinion, have better to do than second-guess his decisions and muck around with his orders rates very, very low on his priority list, and is nowhere near close to his idea of a good time.  
  
The trip from Umbara back to Coruscant hasn’t been long enough to start to take care of all of the regular crap needed to be taken care of in the wake of after-action. Rex has three hundred and four traumatized brothers to go back to, requisitions forms to send in triplicate for armor and blaster charges and other supplies, mind healers to ask for again, new men to fill the gaps and bring the 501st back to some semblance of battle-ready: all the usual minutia of after-action, mixed in with bone-deep horror and no small amount of shaken trust and disturbing questions.    
  
Now that the 501st, along with the rest of the 3rd System Army that was present for the Utter Shit Show of Umbara, is back at the Coruscant Barracks, Rex also has to deal with itchy dress greys and Committee You Fucked Up.  
  
It’s a cold comfort to see Cody and General Kenobi on the other side of the corridor looking as happy to be there as Rex is. The bits of conversation he can hear now and then are mostly about supplies logistics for the 3rd System Army. On that, Rex does not envy Cody’s position. Too much paperwork—at least Kenobi pulls his weight in paperwork on the Jedi side, and Rex can trust he and the other 3rd System Army COs won’t get shorted or passed over, be it for supplies or men or support.  
  
Rex inhales. His hands, tucked behind his back, grip his cover harder. He feels exposed in that corridor, in a way that being stark naked wouldn’t be. Stark naked and a blaster in each hand, he mentally elaborates. Stark naked, blaster in proximity and able to peel Kenobi out of his robes would be even better.    
  
General Kenobi sends a glance his way, still talking to Cody. Cody pointedly does not glance at Rex. On that, his brother had been clear, once he had Rex’s explicit statement it was all consensual and nobody was forcing anyone to do anything they were not happy with: what Rex and General Kenobi—Obi-Wan in private— do in the very, very small amount of spare time they can get, and their relationship as a whole, is none of his business and will never be any of his business.  
  
Here, and now, it’s a very brief, and good, mental distraction from the too many things Rex has no control over, and what little control is left is slipping through his fingers faster than water.  
  
Umbara has not remained a War Shit Show for long. It’s now a _Political War Shit Show_ , caps and italics included, hence Committee You Fucked Up, made of Senate members who had never stepped on a battlefield a single day of their long lives and of Jedi councillors that he can’t trust anymore see him and his brothers as more than canon-fodder, and not a single of them in his direct line of command.  
  
The First Battle of Geonosis had been a spectacular showing of how not prepared the Jedi were to assume command, because that was not their job. Peacekeepers were not war leaders. And still it was a showing that was repeated on Republic’s orders when those orders should have never been given with other battles, other fights, when it was not outright provoked. Insert Umbara. Insert a Jedi General turning on the troops. Insert yelling numbers instead of names and refusing to hear alternative tactics. Involving the Senators, and any other kind of non-military personnel, to muck around the delicate equilibrium they’ve managed to reach is just asking for more brothers to be sent to their deaths without even a second thought.  
  
He and Cody are very aware they’re lucky that Kenobi actively asks for the involvement of the COs under his command and defers to their knowledge and experience in logistics, strategies, tactics. Kenobi jokes sometimes that like all Jedi he’s a good guided weapon and trap detector. Rex thinks he sells himself short, that Kenobi clearly has the attitude one would wish of a military commander and is willing to keep learning—a good trait, all in all.  
  
Then again, Rex is slightly biased on Kenobi’s subject, from a personal point of view.  
  
Kenobi inhales, tucking his hands in his sleeves. Both Cody and Rex takes that as a signal that whatever was going behind closed door is done and the waiting is over. Rex puts his cover on, shares a look with Cody. Cody has the time to sign _move on_ with the slight twist that turns it closer to _show’s on_. Kenobi’s lips stretch into a smirk at the sight of it before he puts his political game face on.    
  
The doors open, and all three of them walk on to take on a different kind of fight.  
  
+  
  
By the time Cody, Rex, and Kenobi walk out of the blasted room and the Senate building, Rex’s day has not improved. He feels exposed and raw, like he failed the brothers who died on Umbara because he did not act fast enough all over again, and his opinion of politicians getting involved in day-to-day actions of the army has not improved either.  
  
When Rex looks up and around again he’s side by side with Kenobi, Cody is not around, and they are outside, walking in the direction of the Jedi Temple. He must have missed Cody walking ahead and catching one of the shuttles back to the Barracks.  
  
Rex stops, rubs his eyes. The sky is blindingly blue. “Do you need me at the Temple, sir?”  
  
General Kenobi —because it might be only the two of them, but they’re in the open, in public, in full view of everyone passing between Senate and Temple, he can’t be anyone else, he can’t be just Obi-Wan— stops too. “No. I was hoping to entice you to Dex’s Diner.”  
  
“Thank you sir, but no. There’s too much to do.”  
  
Kenobi frowns, and that’s concern on his face. “You need some time, too.”  
  
“I have a duty to my brothers.”  
  
“And I have no desire to detract you from your duty—but Rex, you have a duty to yourself as well.” Obi-Wan — _Obi-Wan_ , and not General Kenobi, because Obi-Wan is the one who dares like this—trails the tips of his fingers over Rex’s, from fingertips to the back of his hands. It is barely a touch, unmistakably intimate, hidden from view by Obi-Wan’s robes, and Rex is so unused to go bare handed that each brush makes him shiver. It is barely a touch and it is far more than that.  
  
Rex closes his eyes. “Sir,” he says. Sir, like a plea, like the relief of stepping foot on a capital ship, like waiting for an order he could follow because the one giving it was worth his trust.  
  
“Captain,” Obi-Wan says, and the word whispered in his ear makes Rex shudder. “I’d like to take care of you. If you’ll allow me, of course, and later.” Unspoken, _duty first_ , always, for both of them. Obi-Wan is right in that Rex has a duty to himself, too, to take care of himself. If he does not, if he falls and is not leading the 501st, who would? His chain of command is in shambles, and he doesn’t trust someone else to lead his closest brothers—not now, and possibly not as long as the specter of Umbara shadows him.  
  
Rex opens his eyes. He breathes. He nods.  
  
Obi-Wan smiles.  
  
+  
  
Jesse, Fives and Kix had taken one look at him back at the Barracks and had told him in no uncertain terms that he needed a break just as much as the rest of the 501st and 212th. The three of them had taken matters into their hands, asking Rex to let them deal with as much of what he still had to do as they could. Once he did delegate what could be delegated, what still needed to be done took only a few hours.  
  
Rex takes his dress greys off, puts on his armor back, and goes see his men. He’s greeted by a few nods. The atmosphere is subdued, brothers staying in small groups or alone, and there is only the faint buzz of whispered conversations as a background noise. Only when Rex walks into the training rooms does he see movement, does he hear raised voices. Fives seems to be directing hand to hand drills, providing an outlet to unfocused anger and energy.    
  
It is too bad that Fives is a damn good ARC, and as such works better moving from unit to unit for different missions. If the man ever expresses any wish to stay in only one battalion, Rex will make him his second in command in the heartbeat that follows.  
  
As much as it pains him to acknowledge it, there is nothing more that Rex can do here.  
  
It is later. The place Rex is meeting Obi-Wan at is not one they’ve met at before, but it is very similar: unused quarters technically belonging to the Temple, situated in the sprawl of buildings kept for politicians, diplomats, and other visitors. It’s no surprise to see a clone in armor moving through there.  
  
Rex knocks, waits for the door to slide open. The quarters this time are about the size of an officer’s cabin on the _Resolute_ , sparsely decorated. All the luxury is in the full-sized bathtub in the attached private ’fresher that Rex can see through the open door.  
  
“Captain,” Obi-Wan greets him. He has to have arrived only a few moments before, as he’s still wearing his cloak.    
  
“Obi-Wan,” Rex replies, the door sliding shut and locked at his back.  
  
Rex takes the couple of steps that separate them.  
  
Obi-Wan raises his hand, crossing the space between them. He trails his fingers from Rex’s scalp to the corner of his mouth, calluses catching on the barely-there facial hair, on the faintest scar on cheek and chin, thumb finally resting on parted lips. Rex swallows, feels Obi-Wan’s fingers move against his neck above the collar of his blacks, faintly, so faintly.  
  
“Rex,” Obi-Wan says, and it’s like the closing of a circuit. Now it’s only them, only Obi-Wan and Rex and the time they claim for themselves. Now it’s the time to set aside their titles and worries. Now it’s the time for for physical demonstrations of affections without the fear of an onlooker, for skin against skin, for a battle they act only between the two of them with no conquered and no victor and plenty of satisfaction.    
  
Their activities lead then to the ‘fresher, much later. The luxury of a bathtub can never be praised enough. For all he and his brothers come from a planet that is nothing but water, Rex has no particular affinity for swimming aside from his training, and he was never taken with the ocean. Water in a bathtub is an entirely different matter, one that Obi-Wan takes great pleasure in sharing time and time again. That bathtubs are fairly small as a rule and force the ones sharing them in very close naked contact is all the more reason to indulge when the opportunity presents itself.  
  
Rex maneuvers Obi-Wan until he’s holding on to the man, nose in damp hair and arms around shoulders warmed by the water. Obi-Wan huffs a half-hearted protest, before holding on to Rex’s arms.  
  
“I feel like I should protest that I was the one supposed to take care of you,” Obi-Wan says.  
  
“You’re taking care of me,” Rex replies, and he closes his eyes. The pressure of Obi-Wan’s body against his is very, very pleasant. It feels safe, like this, even naked and in the water. His blasters and Obi-Wan’s lightsaber are in reach, and Obi-Wan is never truly weaponless, but that feeling of safety goes beyond Rex knowing he could shoot anything that interrupted this moment. He could let himself be drowsy, here.  
  
“I’m taking care of you by letting you take care of me?”  
  
Obi-Wan’s hand is now on Rex’s leg, crawling from thigh to the knee poking out of the water, barely stopping on the most recent scars and scratches, the thickened skin where the edge of his cuisse rests.  
  
“If you’re right there I don’t have to wonder which side to defend, where you’re at, and how you are going to get shot this time. I find it calming.”  
  
Obi-Wan makes a noise of mock affront. His hands don’t stop mapping Rex’s body anew, and Rex can feel that between this and the weight of Obi-Wan against him, it will not be long before he’ll be ready to go again. So he moves too, spreading his hands across Obi-Wan’s chest, kissing his neck. The moan of arousal would have been recompense enough—Obi-Wan twisted around to kiss Rex’s fully.    
  
Hours and a world ago, in the face of Fives’s conviction that the war would one day end, Rex had asked _What happens to us then?_. There was no answer from his brothers then, not one that truly meant something.  
  
Here, and now, kissing the Jedi he trusts with his life and his heart, and being kissed and loved in return, it feels like the start of an answer.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
